To Sister Charlotte-Elizabeth Bourcier de Monthureux. Luneville, 1733. On mystical death. Its use.
My very dear daughter,
I well understand that the state in which it pleases God to
place you is very painful to nature, but am rather surprised that
you should not yet comprehend that, in this way God desires to
effect in you a death that will make you live henceforth a life
wholly supernatural and divine. You have asked Him a hundred times for this mystical death, and now that He has answered you,
the more your apparent misery increases, the more certain you
may be that God is effecting that nudity and poverty of spirit
of which mystics speak. I recommend to you the works of
Guilloré in which you will find your present state very well
explained. But you are going to ask me what you should do.
Nothing, nothing, my daughter, but to let God act, and to be
careful not to obstruct by an inopportune activity the operation
of God; to abstain even from sensible acts of resignation,
except when you feel that God requires them of you. Remain
then like a block of wood, and you will see later the marvels
that God will have worked during that silent night of inaction.
Self-love, however, cannot endure to behold itself thus completely
despoiled, and reduced to nothing. Read and read again what
Guilloré says about this nothing, and you will bless God for
putting you in possession of treasure. As for me, I also
less Him for it, and consider yours an enviable lot, for you must
know that there are very few whom God gives the grace of
passing through a state of such great deprivation. The fear of
aridity, of which you tell me, is the ordinary consequence of this
extreme nudity. God upholds you insensibly as you experience
yourself; and it is proved that this state is from God because
of the peace that you possess in it apart from the senses, and
because you would be vexed to be deprived of it. You only
require patience, resignation, and abandonment, but these
dispositions should not be felt. Remember that God sees in
the depths of your heart all your most secret desires. This
assurance should be sufficient for you; a cry hidden is of the
same value as a cry uttered, says the Bishop of Meaux. Leave
off these reflexions and continual self-examinations about what
you do, or leave undone; you have abandoned yourself entirely
to God, and given yourself to Him over and over again; you
must not take back your offering. Leave the care of everything
to Him. The comparison you make is very just; God ties
your hands and feet to be able to carry on His work without interference; and you do nothing but struggle, and make every
effort, but in vain, to break these sacred bonds, and to work
yourself according to your own inclination. What infidelity!
God requires no other work of you but to remain peacefully
in your chains and weakness. As for your duties, do outwardly
as well as you can, and I will answer for the interior, for God is
there in an imperceptible manner to draw you from all that can
be perceived by the senses. Just the feeling of your own misery
and corruption demonstrates the presence of God, but of God
hiding Himself to remain more truly present, and withdrawing
Himself to give Himself more completely. About this read
Allow your terror of death and of judgment to increase as much as God pleases; do nothing positively either to encourage, or to deliver yourself from it; in a word put yourself in God's hands as if you were a dead body that can be handled, turned, and moved as He pleases.
Finally I see nothing more simple, nor more easy than what you should do at present, since it consists in letting God do everything, and remaining passive yourself. It must be owned, however, that this state of inaction is the most cruel torment for our accursed nature which, living only for itself, fears the loss of its activities as much as death and annihilation.